After fleeing his birthplace to escape the civil war, Vedran Misic and his family relocated from Sarajevo, Bosnia to New York City in 1994. He was old enough to remember the horrors of grenade showers and shootings outside which kept him and his family inside of their apartment building, unable to go to school. Experiencing the terror of war made Misic particularly drawn to Gandhi’s non-violent teachings and through art he found a way to “express [his] emotions tied to the war memories and the culture shock of [his] new life and in America.” His latest series of illustrations are colorful portraits, done in marker, dedicated to admirable heroes who spent their lives uniting people, the first two being Gandhi and Bob Marley.

In an interview with RhymeEtReason, Misic shared advice for other artists:

“My personal motto, which I have translated in business and design practices is that there is always room for improvement; the bar can always be raised further… Stay true to yourself and express yourself, don’t follow any rules. And don’t judge success by the recognition you receive or the money you make. It must be judged by how true we stay to our way of thinking, our ideas”